[imagesource: David Cantwell / Forbes]

Some billionaires set up philanthropic trusts that will dish out their wealth to charitable causes once they pass, whilst others chip away at their billions whilst still alive.

If you’re up for a long read as to why that’s not quite as generous as it seems, the Guardian has you covered with this – ‘How philanthropy benefits the super-rich’.

In the case of 89-year-old Irish-American Chuck Feeney, he’s done something that makes him an outlier in the billionaire community, in that he’s given all of his wealth away before he dies.

His $8 billion fortune, made from a duty-free shopping empire, has been whittled away to nothing, reports the Guardian:

This week Feeney, 89, achieved his goal. The Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation he set up in secret in 1982 and transferred almost all of his wealth to, has finally run out of money.

As he signed papers to formally dissolve the foundation, Feeney, who is in poor health, said he was very satisfied with “completing this on my watch”.

From his small rented apartment in San Francisco, he had a message for other members of the super-rich, who may have pledged to give away part of their fortunes but only after they have died: “To those wondering about Giving While Living: try it, you’ll like it.”

Chuck will be hoping those words reach Jeff Bezos, who scores just one out of five on the Forbes philanthropy rating scale, and Mark Zuckerberg, who scores just two.

The latter of those is probably too busy flogging your every whim to advertisers to notice.

If you’re not already a big fan of Chuck’s by this point, consider these words from Christopher Oechsli, the president and chief executive of The Atlantic Philanthropies:

[He] said Feeney would not preach his views to other members of the global super-rich: “But he would scratch his head and say ‘how many yachts or pairs of shoes do you need? What is it all this wealth accumulation about, when you can look about you and see such tremendous needs’.”

Oechsli said Feeney would not criticise other people for not giving more “but he would be dumbfounded – what is all that wealth about if you’re not going to do good with it?”

Perhaps it’s the Irish in him shining through, but Chuck has said over the years that he “always empathised with people who have it tough in life…And the world is full of people who don’t get enough to eat.”

Despite his fortune, Chuck has lived a life of modesty, owning a single pair of shoes at a time, flying economy class, using a $10 Casio wristwatch, and carrying his papers in a plastic bag.

The causes closest to his heart have been higher education institutions (he’s given $3,7 billion), human rights groups ($870 million), and $1,9 billion to projects in Northern Ireland, where his grandparents were from, and the Republic of Ireland.

Forbes has a great profile on Chuck here, but if you really want to go in-depth, let’s finish with Secret Billionaire, which covers his entire life story:

[source:guardian]